Sundowning

This punk band from Vancouver has learned a thing or two about sludge and volume from the year punk broke, but Nü Sensae also have the finesse to break the mold. At its best, the record is a thrilling example of the power of righteous anger.

Rage at its most pointed can offer a footing, a way to define yourself through protest and negation. But it's more potent when left open to interpretation. Delivered in abstract terms, rage can elevate a punk band. Furious questions, not answers, leave a lasting impression. What does this band detest? Nü Sensae, the Vancouver trio of bassist and vocalist Andrea Lukic, drummer Daniel Pitout, and newly added guitarist Brody McKnight, explore the latter territory on their heaviest and finest noise punk record yet, Sundowning.

Nü Sensae's approach feels like a cut-and-paste message-in-a-bottle from the early 1990s: the hysteric vocal ferocity of Babes in Toyland's Kat Bjelland; the unpredictable artistry of early Sonic Youth; the violent corners of post-hardcore noise à la Unsane. This band has learned a thing or two about sludge and volume from the year punk broke; in 2010, inspired by Bikini Kill zines, they began monthly fan-mailings to hundreds of followers around the globe. But Nü Sensae also have the finesse to break the mold: guitars that hint at mystic psychedelia, dirging death marches, wildly tense drum builds. Some verses border on floating, spoken word, as in the record's dread-laced final moment: "I'm in my own world. Life is a nice girl," Lukic deadpans on the massive "Eat Your Mind". "Sweet and secret subtle mess. My 45 is loaded. My head is exploding."

Everything on Sundowning is heavier and more pronounced than the band's 2010 full-length TV, Death, and the Devil. The menacing lead single, "Swim", is a dynamic punk song about doing something new-- "I hit it for the first time/ You wouldn't even try"-- that packs more variation into three minutes than some punk groups manage on an entire record. It opens with sharp, ringing chords and pummeling drums that foreshadow Lukic's clenched, harrowing attack: shrill, full-throated roars that are improbably visceral. Here, and throughout, Lukic flips between coarse, grating shrieks and a hovering, emotionless style that channels Kim Gordon. It sounds both schizophrenic and seamless, anchoring the band's studied loud-quiet shifts. Sundowning's contrasted vocals create a friction that increases the album's velocity, even when thematically deluded, like on the maniacal "Dust": "Speak backwards/ Talk faster/ The walls become a monster/ You've realized/ Your nightmares/ Are thoughts and nothing matters."

Melody is not a priority. The band seems more concerned with dismantling drum kits. Pitout's percussive assaults function like an additional voice of their own-- opening songs unexpectedly with crescendoing rolls, or working with negative space to create something tense and uneasy. The distant "Tea Swamp Park" and "Say What You Are" use skittish, barely-there instrumentation with peculiar, far-off harmonies. The album's introductory instrumental "First Born" conjures a slow, haunted sense of isolation, like peaking through the door to a musty old house, suspecting it's empty but imagining the potential horrors inside. "Tyjna", meanwhile, is a grim, anxious, and ultimately thrilling track sung in Lukic's native Serbian, centered on a jailed person hit with a supernatural fear of our internalized secrets. "What do I do now without my thoughts?" Lukic shouts. Its sentiment feels timely, with a delivery easily comparable to Pussy Riot.

In a 2011 radio interview, a broadcaster asked Pitout about a t-shirt he wore in a picture online: "GIRLS INVENTED PUNK ROCK, NOT ENGLAND," the popular Kim Gordon shirt. The reporter inquired as to what Pitout thought women and non-straight men bring to punk. "Personally, I'm a gay male, and I really relate to female punk musicians," he said. "There's something inherently angry and punk about growing up a girl, or gay, or feeling like you don't fit into the top seat in society." Nü Sensae, despite their loud and endearingly torturous qualities, don't communicate so transparently on record. But Sundowning is an empowering listen, and Lukic's roars force you to reckon with what's raw inside yourself.

Last weekend, I went running with this album. I happened upon a young man clad in a very different sort of shirt: "Cool story babe. Now make me a sandwich." Dumbfounded, I paused, and started towards him; took a photo, told him squarely to fuck himself, and moved away. Which is to say, bands like Nü Sensae can offer valid lessons for living; stay mad, make something of it. And they also offer reminders that so long as pricks like that guy exist, and better dressed versions of him are entrusted as lawmakers, our world will always have room for vital, liberative punk.